Thanks for the post, and the background. I've never been a backpacker in Laos and was amused by the experience you related. I suspect you are right in your assessment that the desire to subtly show off cultural knowledge is the reason behind it. Ironically, those of us expats who actually live in the country use "Laos" and "Lao" quite interchangeably (sometimes in the same conversation) without attributing any subtle meaning to it. "Laos" is the normal English way and "Lao" is the common Lao way (yes the official name is much longer as was noted earlier, but in actual Lao conversation the country is almost invariably referred to simply as "Lao" and context makes clear that it's the country being referred to rather than the food or the people); since they are so close in sound both get used quite a bit and I don't think most of us give it a second thought. (However, only newcomers from the US seem to say "Laotion".) But I shall be careful if I happen to be around backpackers in the future to try and keep the "s" off the country's name to avoid a lecture from some 2-week expert on Lao.

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